Previous research on passion and burnout has shown that teachers, including college faculty, who show high levels of harmonious passion toward their work experience lower burnout than teachers who have high levels of obsessive passion. In the present study, we extended this line of research to college students. We found that students who were…

Social work programs in the United States (N = 74) were investigated to determine strategies used for recruiting and retaining MSW students of color. Most schools had student populations exceeding 25,000 and combined BSW, MSW, and PhD programs. Data were collected using a Graduate Recruitment and Retention Scale with corresponding and acceptably…

The topic of this study was student motivation and intention to graduate at a for-profit university. The research problem addressed is only 23% of bachelor's degree-seeking students at for-profit universities persist to graduate within six years. Students who leave without graduating incur more debt and earn less money over time. Grounded in an…

Despite a surge of empirical work on student participation in online learning environments, the causal links between the learning-related factors and processes with the desired learning outcomes remain unexplored. This study presents a systematic literature review of approaches to model learning in Massive Open Online Courses offering an analysis…

Noncognitive factors, such as academic self-efficacy, motivation, and sense of belonging, predict college students' academic performance and retention. It is unclear if varying profiles of academic mindset are differentially associated with student success. We examined first-year college students' academic mindsets (perceived academic…

Data were collected from 353 online undergraduate introductory statistics students at the beginning of a semester using the Goals and Outcomes Associated with Learning Statistics (GOALS) instrument and an abbreviated form of the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS). Data included a survey of expected grade, expected time commitment, and the…

Even though the United States includes college readiness as a national policy priority, little is known about the factors and experiences that determine positive outcomes in mathematics using online instruction for historically underrepresented minorities at 4-year colleges and universities. The purpose of this quantitative ex-post facto study was…

Predicting which students enrolled in graduate online education are at-risk for failure is an arduous yet important task for teachers and administrators alike. This research reports on a statistical analysis technique using both static and dynamic variables to determine which students are at-risk and when an intervention could be most helpful…

The purpose of this study was to understand if there was an effect of the type of institution attended (HBCU vs PWI) on level of minority status stress, perceived faculty support, persistence attitudes, and perception of the university environment. The sample (N = 414) included African American undergraduate students attending either a HBCU or…

In an effort to characterize perceptions of learning community and engagement in relation to success for underrepresented populations of online learners at a public institution in southeastern United States, a survey was conducted in Spring 2016. The results of the survey were paired with institutional data to create a baseline engagement and…

The underrepresentation of American Indian students continues to exist at the undergraduate and graduate levels of postsecondary education despite increases of American Indian student enrollment. The purpose of this quantitative study is to identify correlations between academic factors and graduate student persistence, as well as to understand…

Few empirical studies of adult distance learners' decisions to drop out of degree programs have used large enough sample sizes to generalize the findings or data sets drawn from multiple online programs that address various subjects. Accordingly, in this study, we used a large administrative data set drawn from multiple online degree programs to…

Fundamentally concerned with motivation, self-determination theory (SDT) represents a framework of several mini-theories to explore how social context interacts with people's motivational types categorized by degree of regulation internalization. This paper aims to modify an existing theory-based instrument (Academic Motivation Scale, or AMS) and…

Academic performance is a primary predictor of college graduation, yet few studies have examined one of the earliest indicators of academic performance--first-semester grade point average (GPA). Given the considerable public and private investment in ensuring access for underrepresented students, a focus on the role of first-semester GPA for these…

Study abroad has been a part of the curricular and co-curricular programming of higher education since 1875. Yet, despite the long history, a literature search revealed that study abroad is the least examined of the high impact practices (HIPs) related to engagement theory. Further, despite its promise as a retention strategy, study abroad has…